Islamabad — A Swiss couple held captive for nearly a year by the Taliban in Pakistan turned up at a Pakistan Army post close to the Afghan border on Thursday, claiming to have escaped from their captors, the Pakistani årmy said. They were swiftly flown to safety by the military.

Taliban commanders said a ransom was paid in exchange for the release of the man and woman.

David Och and Daniela Widmer, smiling and looking healthy, briefly waved for waiting cameras at a military airbase close to the Pakistani capital before getting into a van.

Two local Pakistani Taliban commanders said the couple had been freed, but only after an undisclosed ransom had been paid and some Taliban prisoners were released from Pakistani custody. They refused to give their names.

Militants and criminal gangs often kidnap wealthy Pakistanis and less commonly foreigners.

Large ransoms are often paid to secure their release, but such payments are rarely confirmed.

There are at least five other foreigners currently being held in Pakistan.

On Jan. 5, armed men kidnapped a British man working for the Red Cross in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, the violence-wracked province where the Swiss couple were also taken captive.

Last August, a 70-year-old American humanitarian aid worker was kidnapped from his house in the Punjabi city of Lahore. Al-Qaida claimed to be holding the man, Warren Weinstein, and said in a video he would be released if the United States stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.